About Us

Any Subject Books is a new look, new style literary agency. Not only do we publish a wide range of books, fiction and non-fiction, but we also provide a full range of economically priced top quality publishing services for the independent author, from cover design to book tours, formatting to ISBN provision.

We promise to:

Look with a critical and experienced eye at what you send us or tell us.

Pay attention to the needs of the market

Respond to any bona-fide request, submission, suggestion etc

Treat you with the respect you deserve

Now for the introductions. The two directors are Clive and Damaris West, a husband and wife writer team who’ve already had many years of experience of running a busy agency together. With Damaris’ background in languages, literature and poetry and Clive’s in the commercial world, marketing and management, between them they already cover a wide range of genres. Add in their years of managing an employment agency and you can see they have the requisite background to run a company like Any Subject Books.

Book Publishers for New Authors

Clive West

Clive West is director of marketing and recruitment at Any Subject Books. His first job was as a production controller at a major printer and binders but he then transferred to the construction industry, graduating from the University of Portsmouth with a BSc in Civil Engineering. Considering teaching at that point, he took a postgraduate course in teaching adults but stayed in Civil Engineering for many years before setting up an employment agency with his wife Damaris and, from there, moved into writing and publishing.

His role in Any Subject Books is to:

Maintain and develop systems

Promote the site through the principal search engines

Prepare bids and pricing strategies

Be on-hand for any legal advice

Oversee recruitment and assessment of service providers

Clive writes about the flaws he sees in the world, and aims to make his readers think about how and why the people around them behave the way they do. He is the author of the popular Hobson’s Choice, a collection of twist-in-the-tail short stories, the full-length novel The Road and non-fiction guides to succeeding in job interviews and to a disease he suffers from, lymphedema. His next collection of short stories, A Snake in the Grass, is currently in the works with further novels also being planned.

A keen musician, Clive plays keyboard and saxophone. He is an avid reader and enjoys watching films, documentaries and crime programmes.

Damaris West

Damaris West is the Managing Director of Any Subject Books. She holds an MA in French and Spanish from Oxford University and a postgraduate diploma from The College of Librarianship, Wales. Her specific role within the company is to:

Oversee the day-to-day running of the business to ensure that it always remains viable

Monitor the performance of outworkers to determine that deadlines are adhered to

Issue payments to authorized providers of specialist services

Co-ordinate the actions of the other management team members

Prepare and file the company’s accounts

Damaris is also an eclectic writer. Her published works include the autobiographically-inspired Wild Goose, the occult thriller Skolthan, and the family drama Queen Anne’s Lace. Her latest novel, The Wolves of Little Mouse Valley, is currently in the editing stages. The natural world interests her immensely, and she spends much of her time gardening and studying various plants and insects. She also enjoys playing the violin, writing poetry, painting, and photography. Over a two-year period, she ran an award-winning daily blog called ‘Living in Italy’ about her experiences of life in Umbria. She has worked as a librarian and a private tutor in the past, and ran a successful employment agency for professionals with her husband Clive in the 1990’s.